Question Types in the GMAT Verbal Reasoning Section

GMAT Verbal Reasoning Section – Question Types

The Verbal Reasoning section is one of two components which people often think of first when thinking about the GMAT. On the Verbal Reasoning section of the exam, you can expect to see three types of questions, roughly equally represented. These three question types are Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, and Sentence Correction.

Having a firm grasp on what to expect from each question type will help you to focus your preparation and pinpoint areas of weakness you need to work on before exam day.

• Reading Comprehension

  Reading Comprehension questions are presented as a passage you are to read before answering three to four multiple-choice questions. The passages are often about business, social science, or physical and biological sciences. These passages are generally academic and neutral in tone. For the purposes of standardized testing, comprehension refers to your ability to decipher and summarize the main idea, understand the difference between implied and explicit statements, ability to infer information from the text, recognize the author's tone and attitude, and analyze the structure of the text.

• Critical Reasoning

  At a quick glance, the Critical Reasoning questions may look similar to the Reading Comprehension questions; however, they are testing two different skills. While Reading Comprehension is testing your ability to break down the text, Critical Reasoning is assessing your ability to evaluate an argument being made. As in a Reading Comprehension question, a Critical Reasoning question will start with a text for you to read. This text will present an argument and is generally shorter than a Reading Comprehension text. After reading the prompt, you are to answer a multiple-choice question regarding information that can weaken or strengthen the argument being made.

• Sentence Correction

  Sentence Correction questions assess the test-taker's grasp on grammar rules in written standard English. You will be presented with a sentence, likely quite wordy and complicated. Some or all of the sentence will be underlined, and you will be presented with five multiple-choice answers. Your objective is to choose the option that is the grammatically correct version of the sentence. The first option is always the same as the original sentence, followed by four options changing one ore more parts of the underlined section.